Natalie Portman Denies Man of Steel & The Dark Knight Rises Rumors

When the average person announces that they’re not in the running for a high-profile job, it generally only matters to their immediate peers. But when your name is Natalie Portman and the work in question involves Superman: The Man of Steel and The Dark Knight Rises, more people tend to be interested.

The soon-to-be twice Oscar nominated actress has laughed off rumors that she’s up to star in either Zack Snyder’s Superman reboot or the final entry in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy.

Portman has been quite busy this year, between her physically and mentally exhausting work in Black Swan and her role in four other films that’ll hit cinemas in 2011 – the ranks of which include Marvel’s Thor, Ivan Reitman’s No Strings Attached, the medieval comedy/action adventure Your Highness, and the somber drama The Other Woman.

That’s on top of the recent news that the 29-year old actress is now pregnant and engaged to her Black Swan dance choreographer, Benjamin Millepied. So it seems likely that Portman will be out of commission for the next year or so – a matter that may have even affected her decision to pass on Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity back in October.

*Insert Natalie Portman works too hard joke here*

The rumors circling both the next Superman and Batman flicks are far from settled for the time being. Anne Hathaway was the most recent high-profile actress to be rumored for the part of Miss Lane in Snyder’s Man of Steel and Nolan always keeps everything close to the chest, so it’s anyone’s guess as to which actress the filmmaker has in mind to play a part in his Dark Knight Rises, which could include a female villain, new love interest for Bruce Wayne, or both (a la Talia al Ghul).

Dark Knight Risesbegins production this May and shooting on Man of Steel is expected to get underway around the same time this year. That essentially means that Portman’s name can be safely crossed off the list of A-listers up to appear in either movie – though that probably won’t stop fans from speculating since Portman did not just say “no” about either project. The fact that stars have flat-out lied about their connection to tentpole pics in the past doesn’t help either.

But since we’ve yet to hear any official decree on the subject – who do you want to see play Louis Lane in Superman: The Man of Steel? And what leading lady and/or villain are you hoping for in The Dark Knight Rises?